Friday, July 8, 2011

Suspected North Korean spy disguised export of luxury cars as destined for embassies

A North Korean man under arrest for illegally exporting luxury foreign cars to Pyongyang by way of South Korea allegedly disguised the cars as destined for foreign embassies, it has been learned.
An Sonki, 71, a North Korean resident of Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward, was earlier arrested by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) on charges of violating the Foreign Exchange Law for exporting luxury foreign cars to North Korea from Kobe in 2008 under the instruction of the Workers' Party of Korea's undercover agency.

According to the latest revelations, the North's undercover agency instructed An to make the Indian Embassy in Pyongyang one of the final destinations of the exported cars apparently to prevent South Korean authorities from uncovering irregularities when the cars went through the South. The MPD is trying to work out all the facts of the case.

An is suspected to have exported three fancy foreign cars to Pyongyang on two separate occasions in 2008, ferrying the cars from Kobe Port. The export was undertaken by a Tokyo-based trading company called "Godo Holdings," which is effectively managed by An. The MPD suspects that An is a North Korean agent.
According to the MPD's Public Security Bureau, An had declared to Japanese customs that the consignee of the luxury cars was a delivery company in Seoul. However, the vehicles were ultimately shipped to North Korea by way of the South, where the items were re-registered as transit cargo. It is believed that the cars were declared as destined for the embassies when they cleared South Korean customs.

Investigators have confiscated from An's home documents that described a plan to make the Indian Embassy and a Middle Eastern embassy in Pyongyang the final destinations of the cars.
"I was told to make the embassies the nominal destinations of the cars," An was quoted as telling investigators.

Investigators have also confiscated a North Korean passport, a seal with the name of the undercover agency engraved, as well as a document describing a plan to establish routes to distribute the North's agricultural and marine products to Japan, the United States and Europe. It has also emerged that An had traveled to South Africa in order to procure rare metals, according to investigators.
An reportedly belonged to a section of the North's undercover agency that was in charge of Japan.